My father died quietly on April 25, 2015. He was one month shy of his 94th birthday. The family, his four children and their spouses as well as seven of his 13 grandchildren, convened in Milwaukee to bury him. Dozens of friends, neighbors, and former law partners assembled for an afternoon wake. Others called. Not a […]
I am not good at embracing uncertainty. Nor am I good with transitions despite the tagline of this blog. As we drove away from Washington D.C. in June 2014, having packed up our house, I wept. Sam peered at me in confusion. “Why are you crying?” he asked. “Weren’t you the one who decided we should clear […]
One day after we moved out of our sublet, we stumbled onto the perfect apartment near our daughter and son-in-law in Brooklyn Heights. It’s a tiny 1 BR (yes, everything in Brooklyn is tiny) on the 10th floor of a building with a view south to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. I fell in love with it […]
I did not want to like Brooklyn. There is a lot to not like. I have observed a lot about Brooklyn from a below-street-level garden apartment. I’ve listened to the tinkling of cans and bottles at 2 AM as a homeless man rummaged through the garbage in search of recyclables. I’ve monitored constant traffic working its way around […]
The stigma around depression is stubbornly pervasive. No matter that depression affects 350 million people worldwide. Chances are that someone in your office or your circle of friends or even your immediate family suffers from depression – and you don’t know about it. Most likely, they suffer in silence. I am one of those. I was […]
Debbie has instructed me to write a wrap-up as we bring the 12th month to a close. She suggested I riff off my first post of June 1, 2013: Stepping Into the Void After 31 Years. After several false starts I have come to the conclusion that… I cannot come to a conclusion. I am unable to synthesize […]
Loyal readers know that I was relieved to make the discovery that a gap year, according to the British definition, is 15 months long. We’re at the end of the twelfth month. That means we’ve got a few more months to close out a year of reinvention. So what have I learned? What is the […]
Talk about cultural whiplash. Yesterday I was filling out my Moose Permit Lottery Application and dreaming of WMDs (Wildlife Management Districts). Today I am in Brooklyn, NY. Let me explain. As we enter the preantepenultimate (I love that word) month of our Gap Year I am fulfilling a couple of promises to others and to myself. […]
We had the same conversation over and over before embarking on our gap year. “What about the money?” Sam would ask. The question was simple. The subtext was not. The topic, of course, was Sam leaving his medical practice. The subtext was how could we afford to live without his salary. And the bigger implications: […]
The greatest stressors in life are disease, death, divorce and déménagement. Debbie and I are in the midst of the latter and although it may be the least important, still… We are spending a month in Washington to enjoy our last foreseeable spring in Georgetown, a gloriously gardened and architecturally resplendent enclave. Spring is beautiful […]
